#muhammad syed

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

“This intention to protect Muslims from bigotry by obfuscating the reality of their beliefs and attitudes will not help anyone, least of which themselves. We cannot demand they enter the 21st century while refusing to admit that their ideology keeps them tied to the 7th.”

-- Muhammad Syed, Ex-Muslims of North America

The biggest victims of Islam are Muslims.

[etakeh]

Oh wait!  Did you guys see this?

Is this the right time for the "I never thought leopards would eat MY face” thing?

(source)

[cr0sscounter]

Really enjoyed the ex-muslim panel at Ga State, today. Of course there were a couple of snowflakes trying to derail the conversation, but the speakers were good at keeping the discussion flowing.

[revengerevisited]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDIR3GhXszo)

[empiricaldaily]

So is there any credence to the claim that Islam supports FGM [female genital mutilation]? In fact, there is. To name two, the major collections of the Hadith Sahih Muslim 3:684 and Abu Dawud 41:5251 support the practice. Of the four major schools of thought in Sunni Islam, two mandate FGM while two merely recommend it. Unsurprisingly, in the Muslim-majority countries dominated by the schools which mandate the practice, there is evidence of widespread female circumcision. Of particular note: None of the major schools condemn the practice. This isn’t the first time Reza has stated half-truths in defense of his agenda. In his book No God But God, he misleads readers about many issues including the age of Muhammad’s child-bride Aisha. Scripture unanimously cites Aisha’s betrothal at age 6 or 7 and consummation at 9. Similarly, he quotes Mariya the Copt as being a wife of the prophet when overwhelming evidence points to her being Muhammad’s concubine. We believe that Islam badly needs to be reformed, and it is only Muslims who can truly make it into a modern religion. But it is the likes of Reza Aslan who act as a deterrent to change by refusing to acknowledge real complications within the scripture and by actively promoting half-truths. Bigotry against Muslims is a real and pressing problem, but one can criticize the Islamic ideology without treating Muslims as themselves problematic or incapable of reform. There are true Muslim reformists who are willing to call a spade a spade while working for the true betterment of their peoples — but their voices are drowned out by the noise of apologists who are all-too-often aided by the Western left. Those who accept distortions in order to hold on to a comforting dream-world where Islamic fundamentalism is merely an aberration are harming reform by encouraging apologists.

Muhammad Syed and Sarah Haider. 2014. (Title: Reza Aslan is Wrong About Islam and This is Why)

[empiricaldaily]

Only those who themselves aren’t very “schooled” in Islam and Muslim affairs would imply that Aslan does anything but misinform by cherry-picking and distorting facts. Nearly everything Aslan stated during his segment was either wrong, or technically-correct-but-actually-wrong. We will explain by going through each of his statements in the hopes that Aslan was just misinformed (although it’s hard for us to imagine that a “scholar” such as Aslan wouldn’t be aware of all this). Aslan contends that while some Muslim countries have problems with violence and women’s rights, in others like “Indonesia, women are absolutely 100 percent equal to men” and it is therefore incorrect to imply that such issues are a problem with Islam and “facile” to imply that women are “somehow mistreated in the Muslim world.” Let us be clear here: No one in their right mind would claim that Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bangladesh are a “free and open society for women.” Happily, a few of them have enshrined laws that have done much to bring about some progress in equality between the sexes. But this progress is hindered or even eroded by the creeping strength of the notoriously anti-woman Sharia courts.

Muhammad Syed and Sarah Haider. 2014. (Title: Reza Aslan is Wrong About Islam and This is Why)